Search results for: youth personal decision aid

Authors: Hasan Eskin, Gizem Özmen, A. Nazmi Çeler

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When we examine the home textile development process, it follows a parallel line with the other textile products especially in the garment fabrics in terms of raw materials, production technologies and pattern characteristics. As a result, the expectations of people regarding textile, comfort, pattern (texture) and color properties are increasing. One of the places where comfort is most sought after is bath, pool, sea and baths. In addition to the material and technique that make up the physical structure in woven fabrics, color has an impressive importance with its strong effects. Color is the most prominent element in the fabric, and the color and texture are visually reinforcing. Evaluation of color in fabric is a personal phenomenon. Factors that determine color determination in fabric are the amount of color used, color ratio and its relationship with other colors. In this project; Considering the effect of color dimensions on human, we are talking about the crystallized colored towel that we developed in terms of comfort and texture properties. The basis of the effect created in the towel; It is formed by bending the yarn from its own special blend and the harmonious appearance of the natural crystallized rainbow colors with the pattern effect it determines on the warp yarns by using the weft yarns in the weaving. In addition, by using different weaving techniques and colors, alternatives can be created and personalized patterns can be created. One side of the towel determines the properties related to color, while the pile part determines the comfort characteristics with its soft touch and water absorbency.

Keywords: color effect, comfort, towel, weaving technique

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Authors: Christopher Pullen

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This paper explores the significance of British cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s as offering a renaissance of realist discourse, in the representation of everyday social issues. Offering a rejection of Hollywood cinema and the superficially of the middle classes, these ‘kitchen sink dramas’ often set within modest and sometimes squalid domestic and social environments, focused on the political struggle of the disenfranchised examining poverty, the oppressed and the outsider. While films like Look Back in Anger and Room at the Top looked primarily at male heterosexual subjectivity, films like A Taste of Honey and Victim focused on female and queer male narratives. Framing the urban landscape as a discursive architectural arena, representing basic living conditions and threatening social worlds, these iconic films established new storytelling processes for the outsider. This paper examines this historical context foregrounding the contemporary films Beautiful Thing (Hettie Macdonald, 1996), Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011) and Pride (Marcus Warchus, 2014), while employing the process of textual analysis in relation to theories of affect, defined by writers such as Lisa U. Marks and Sara Ahmed. Considering both romance narratives and public demonstrations of unity, where the queer ‘affective’ body is placed within architectural and social space, Beautiful Thing tells the story of gay male teenagers falling in love despite oppression from family and school, Weekend examines a one-night stand between young gay men and the unlikeliness of commitment, but the drive for sensitivity, and Pride foregrounds an historical relationship between queer youth activists and the miner’s union, who were on strike between 1984-5. These films frame the queer ‘affective’ body within politicized public space, evident in lower class men’s working clubs, tenement housing and brutal modernist tower blocks, focusing on architectural features such as windows, doorways and staircases, relating temporality, desire and change. Through such an examination a hidden history of gay male performativity is revealed, framing the potential of contemporary cinema to focus on the context of the outsider in encouraging social change.

Keywords: queer, affect, cinema, architecture, life chances

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Authors: Asma Ben Yaghlane, Mohamed Naceur Azaiez

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In this paper, we briefly introduce the concept of Poisson attacks in the case of defense/attack strategies where attacks are assumed to be continuous. We suggest a game model in which the attacker will combine both criteria of a sufficient confidence level of a successful attack and a reasonably small size of the estimation error in order to launch an attack. Here, estimation error arises from assessing the system failure upon attack using aggregate data at the system level. The corresponding error is referred to as aggregation error. On the other hand, the defender will attempt to deter attack by making one or both criteria inapplicable. The defender will build his/her strategy by both strengthening the targeted system and increasing the size of error. We will formulate the defender problem based on appropriate optimization models. The attacker will opt for a Bayesian updating in assessing the impact on the improvement made by the defender. Then, the attacker will evaluate the feasibility of the attack before making the decision of whether or not to launch it. We will provide illustrations to better explain the process.

Keywords: attacker, defender, game theory, information

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Authors: Elias K. Maragos, Petros E. Maravelakis

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In Dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis (DDEA), which is a subfield of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the productivity of Decision Making Units (DMUs) is considered in relation to time. In this case, as it is accepted by the most of the researchers, there are outputs, which are produced by a DMU to be used as inputs in a future time. Those outputs are known as intermediates. The common models, in DDEA, do not take into account the shape of the distribution of those inputs, outputs or intermediates data, assuming that the distribution of the virtual value of them does not deviate from linearity. This weakness causes the limitation of the accuracy of the analytical power of the traditional DDEA models. In this paper, the authors, using the concept of piecewise linear inputs and outputs, propose an extended DDEA model. The proposed model increases the flexibility of the traditional DDEA models and improves the measurement of the dynamic performance of DMUs.

Keywords: Dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis, DDEA, piecewise linear inputs, piecewise linear outputs

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Authors: Laura Bishop, Isabel Jones, Linn Halvorsen, Angela Smith

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Phishing emails are a form of social engineering where attackers deceive email users into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as ransomware. Scammers often use persuasion techniques to influence email users to interact with malicious content. This study will use eye-tracking equipment to analyze how participants respond to and process Cialdini’s persuasion principles when utilized within phishing emails. Eye tracking provides insights into what is happening on the subconscious level of the brain that the participant may not be aware of. An experiment is conducted to track participant eye movements, whilst interacting with and then filing a series of persuasive emails delivered at random. Eye tracking metrics will be analyzed in relation to whether a malicious email has been identified as phishing (filed as ‘suspicious’) or not phishing (filed in any other folder). This will help determine the most influential persuasion techniques and those 'areas of interest' within an email that require intervention. The results will aid further research on how to reduce the effects of persuasion on human decision-making when interacting with phishing emails.

Keywords: cybersecurity, human-centric, phishing, psychology

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Authors: Sakul Jariyachamsit

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The objectives of this research were to study the behaviour of inbound tourist who visited Ratanakosin Island and to study their needs concerning support facilities. The independent variables included gender, age, levels of education, occupation, and income while the dependent variables were classified into two groups: tourists’ behaviour variables and tourists’ need of supporting facilities. A simple random sampling method was utilized to get 225 respondents. The majority of respondents were both male and female in the same proportion but most were between 21-30 years old. Most were married with a graduated degree. The average income of the respondents was between $20,000-30,000. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents came to Thailand for the first time and spent about 8 days in Thailand and preferred to travel in small groups. Their decision to come to Thailand was influenced by word of mouth. When they first thought of Thailand, they thought of Thai food. In terms of the needs for tourists around the Ratanakosin Island, and ranked in importance, are as follows: a tourist centre, somebody who can speak English, a trustable agency, police patrol, and the availability of maps and brochures.

Keywords: Rattanakosin Island, tourist, travelling behaviour, media engineering

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Authors: Prathik Ranka, Sridhar K, Vasanth Daniel, Mithun Shankar

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With growing global food needs and climate uncertainties, informed crop choices are critical for increasing agricultural productivity. Here we propose a machine learning-based crop recommendation system to help farmers in choosing the most proper crops according to their geographical regions and soil properties. We can deploy algorithms like Decision Trees, Random Forests and Support Vector Machines on a broad dataset that consists of climatic factors, soil characteristics and historical crop yields to predict the best choice of crops. The approach includes first preprocessing the data after assessing them for missing values, unlike in previous jobs where we used all the available information and then transformed because there was no way such a model could have worked with missing data, and normalizing as throughput that will be done over a network to get best results out of our machine learning division. The model effectiveness is measured through performance metrics like accuracy, precision and recall. The resultant app provides a farmer-friendly dashboard through which farmers can enter their local conditions and receive individualized crop suggestions.

Keywords: crop recommendation, precision agriculture, crop, machine learning

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Authors: Yuki Hara

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Entrepreneurs are welcomed to the landscaping industry, conserving practically and theoretically biological diversity in landscaping construction, although there are limited reports on corporative trials making a market with a new logistics system of native plants (NP) between landscaping companies and nurserymen. This paper explores the entrepreneurial process of a landscaping company, “5byMidori” for NP marketing. This paper employs a case study design. Data are collected in interviews with the manager and designer of 5byMidori, 2 scientists, 1 organization, and 18 nurserymen, fieldworks at two nurseries, observations of marketing activities in three years, and texts from published documents about the business concept and marketing strategy with NP. These data are analyzed by qualitative methods. The results show that NP is suitable for the vision of 5byMidori improving urban desertified environment with closer urban-rural linkage. Professional landscaping team changes a forestry organization into NP producers conserving a large nursery of a mountain. Multifaceted PR based on the entrepreneurial context and personal background of a landscaping venture can foster team members' businesses and help customers and users to understand the biodiversity value of the product. Wider partnerships with existing nurserymen at other sites in many regions need socio-economic incentives and environmental reliability. In conclusion, the entrepreneurial marketing of a landscaping company needs to add more meanings and a variety of merits in terms of ecosystem services, as NP tends to be in academic definition and independent from the cultures like nurseryman and forestry.

Keywords: biological diversity, landscaping industry, marketing, native plants

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Authors: Cita Ayeni

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Following countless violations of Human Rights in Nigeria by the various arms and agencies of government; from the Military to the Federal Police and other law enforcement agencies, Nigeria has been riddled with several reports of acts by these agencies against the citizens, ranging from illegal arrest and imprisonment, torture, disappearing, and extrajudicial killings, just to mention a few. This paper, focuses on SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad), a division of the Nigeria Police Force, and its reported threats to the people’s security, particularly the Nigerian youths, with continuous violence, extortion, illegal arrest and imprisonment, terror, and extrajudicial activities resulting in maiming and in most cases death, thus infringing on the human rights of the people it’s sworn to protect. This research further analyses how the activities of SARS has over the years instigated fear on the average Nigerian youth, preventing the free participation in daily life, education, job, and individual development, in turn impeding the realization of their full potentials for growth and participation in collective national development. This research analyzes the executive order by the then Acting President (Vice-President) of Nigeria, directing the overhauling of SARS, and its implementation by the Federal Police Force in determining if it’s enough to prevent or put a stop to the continuous Human Rights abuse and threat to the security of the individual citizen. Concluding that although the order by the Acting President was given with an intent to halt the various violations by SARS, and the Inspector General of Police’s (IGP) subsequent action by releasing a statement following the order, the bureaucracy in Nigeria, with a history of incompetency and a return to 'business as usual' after a reduced public outcry, it’s most likely that there will not be adequate follow up put in place and these violations would be slowly 'swept under the rug' with SARS officials not held accountable. It is recommended therefore that the Federal Government through the NPF, following the reforms made, in collaboration with the mentioned Independent Human Rights and civil societies organizations should periodically produce unbiased and publicly accessible reports on the implementation of these reforms and progress made. This will go a long way in assuring the public of actual fulfillment of the restructuring, reduce fear by the youths and restore some public faith in the government.

Keywords: special anti-robbery squad, youths in Nigeria, overhaul, insecurities, human rights violations

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Authors: Paula Linna

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During the recent years interest in inclusive business has increased. Still, research on inclusive business development is at infancy. This study provides empirical evidence on inclusive business development of mini-grid solution for the rural African communities. This study tests how well the insights of creation theory can explain inclusive business development process which often occurs under uncertainty due to demands for developing new technology, new business model and establishing business in new market. These several uncertain elements of business development impact what kind of business strategies the entrepreneur can practice and what kind of decision making tools to use. In addition, community engagement is essential for the successful operative management of a mini-grid solution. This study advances the understanding of inclusive business development and can be used as the foundation for future work to facilitate the process of new business venture creation at the BOP particularly when developing community-operated entrepreneurship model.

Keywords: creation theory, base of the pyramid (BOP), community-operated entrepreneurship, rural African communities

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Authors: Seyed Mohammadbagher Jafari, Elahe Mahdizadeh, Masomeh Ghahremani

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Nowadays almost all organizations depend on information systems to run their businesses. Investment on information systems and their maintenance to keep them always in best situation to support firm business is one of the main issues for every organization. The new concept of cloud computing was developed as a technical and economic model to address this issue. In cloud computing the computing resources, including networks, applications, hardwares and services are configured as needed and are available at the moment of request. However, migration to cloud is not an easy task and there are many issues that should be taken into account. This study tries to provide a comprehensive model to assess a firm readiness to implement cloud computing. By conducting a systematic literature review, four dimensions of readiness were extracted which include technological, human, organizational and environmental dimensions. Every dimension has various criteria that have been discussed in details. This model provides a framework for cloud computing readiness assessment. Organizations that intend to migrate to cloud can use this model as a tool to assess their firm readiness before making any decision on cloud implementation.

Keywords: cloud computing, human readiness, organizational readiness, readiness assessment model

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Authors: Vaibhav Garg

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The concept of guest engagement lies in the rigor of operational excellence and the emotional engagement of associates who perform their tasks genuinely from their hearts and hence in word and indeed, in intent and through gestures, a great hospitality is always genuine, attentive, passionate, caring and warm where engaged associates deliver exceptional service experiences and creates memories to last forever for the guests. One out of every five guests says that their decision of coming back to the same hotel is influenced by the opportunity to “experience and be engaged” A key question is what does a guest mean by experience and be engaged? Most hotels are highly concerned about the guest satisfaction. Therefore they have the brand standards which are a guide to the associate to ensure consistent implementation of set service and product standards to satisfy a guest. However, satisfaction of basic guest needs does not necessarily lead to engagement. For example an absolutely clean room and an in room dining order delivered on time can satisfy a guest but may not engage him. Absence of these standards can certainly lead to guest dissatisfaction however; the presence of these standards does not necessarily lead to guest engagement or guest delight.

Keywords: guest engagement, guest satisfaction, hospitality, hotel operations, operational excellence

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Authors: Jara Kaye S. Villanueva, M. Rosario Concepcion O. Ang

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For the past few years, Philippines has depended most of its energy source on oil, coal, and fossil fuel. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), the dominance of coal in the energy mix will continue until the year 2020. The expanding energy needs in the country have led to increasing efforts to promote and develop renewable energy. This research is a part of the government initiative in preparation for renewable energy development and expansion in the country. The Philippine Renewable Energy Resource Mapping from Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) Surveys is a three-year government project which aims to assess and quantify the renewable energy potential of the country and to put them into usable maps. This study focuses on the site suitability analysis of the four renewable energy sources – biomass (coconut, corn, rice, and sugarcane), hydro, solar, and wind energy. The site assessment is a key component in determining and assessing the most suitable locations for the construction of renewable energy power plants. This method maximizes the use of both the technical methods in resource assessment, as well as taking into account the environmental, social, and accessibility aspect in identifying potential sites by utilizing and integrating two different methods: the Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) method and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. For the MCDA, Analytical Hierarchy Processing (AHP) is employed to determine the parameters needed for the suitability analysis. To structure these site suitability parameters, various experts from different fields were consulted – scientists, policy makers, environmentalists, and industrialists. The need to have a well-represented group of people to consult with is relevant to avoid bias in the output parameter of hierarchy levels and weight matrices. AHP pairwise matrix computation is utilized to derive weights per level out of the expert’s gathered feedback. Whereas from the threshold values derived from related literature, international studies, and government laws, the output values were then consulted with energy specialists from the DOE. Geospatial analysis using GIS tools translate this decision support outputs into visual maps. Particularly, this study uses Euclidean distance to compute for the distance values of each parameter, Fuzzy Membership algorithm which normalizes the output from the Euclidean Distance, and the Weighted Overlay tool for the aggregation of the layers. Using the Natural Breaks algorithm, the suitability ratings of each of the map are classified into 5 discrete categories of suitability index: (1) not suitable (2) least suitable, (3) suitable, (4) moderately suitable, and (5) highly suitable. In this method, the classes are grouped based on the best groups similar values wherein each subdivision are set from the rest based on the big difference in boundary values. Results show that in the entire Philippine area of responsibility, biomass has the highest suitability rating with rice as the most suitable at 75.76% suitability percentage, whereas wind has the least suitability percentage with score 10.28%. Solar and Hydro fall in the middle of the two, with suitability values 28.77% and 21.27%.

Keywords: site suitability, biomass energy, hydro energy, solar energy, wind energy, GIS

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Authors: Zhi Liu, Hui Jiang, Jin Li, Kunhao Chen, Langfang Zhang

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Fast acquisition of the seismic information and accurate assessment of the earthquake disaster is the key problem for emergency rescue after a destructive earthquake. In order to meet the requirements of the earthquake emergency response and rescue for the cities and counties, a quasi real-time comprehensive evaluation system for earthquake disaster is developed. Based on monitoring data of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) strong motion network, structure database of a county area and the real-time disaster information by the mobile terminal after an earthquake, fragility analysis method and dynamic correction algorithm are synthetically obtained in the developed system. Real-time evaluation of the seismic disaster in the county region is finally realized to provide scientific basis for seismic emergency command, rescue and assistant decision.

Keywords: quasi real-time, earthquake disaster data collection, MEMS accelerometer, dynamic correction, comprehensive evaluation

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Authors: Misha Mirza

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In recent years, the definition of journalism in Pakistan has changed, so has the mindset of people and their approach towards a news story. For the audience, news has become more interesting than a drama or a film. This research thus provides an insight into Pakistan’s evolving media landscape. It tries not only to bring forth the outcomes of cross-platform cooperation among print and broadcast journalism but also gives an insight into the interactive data visualization techniques being used. The storytelling in journalism in Pakistan has evolved from depicting merely the truth to tweaking, fabricating and producing docu-dramas. It aims to look into how news is translated to a visual. Pakistan acquires a diverse cultural heritage and by engaging audience through media, this history translates into the storytelling platform today. The paper explains how journalists are thriving in a converging media environment and provides an analysis of the narratives in television talk shows today.’ Jack of all, master of none’ is being challenged by the journalists today. One has to be a quality information gatherer and an effective storyteller at the same time. Are journalists really looking more into what sells rather than what matters? Express Tribune is a very popular news platform among the youth. Not only is their newspaper more attractive than the competitors but also their style of narrative and interactive web stories lead to well-rounded news. Interviews are used as the basic methodology to get an insight into how data visualization is compassed. The quest for finding out the difference between visualization of information versus the visualization of knowledge has led the author to delve into the work of David McCandless in his book ‘Knowledge is beautiful’. Journalism in Pakistan has evolved from information to combining knowledge, infotainment and comedy. What is being criticized the most by the society most often becomes the breaking news. Circulation in today’s world is carried out in cultural and social networks. In recent times, we have come across many examples where people have gained overnight popularity by releasing songs with substandard lyrics or senseless videos perhaps because creativity has taken over information. This paper thus discusses the various platforms of convergence journalism from Pakistan’s perspective. The study concludes with proving how Pakistani pop culture Truck art is coexisting with all the platforms in convergent journalism. The changing media landscape thus challenges the basic rules of journalism. The slapstick humor and ‘jhatka’ in Pakistani talk shows has evolved from the Pakistani truck art poetry. Mobile journalism has taken over all the other mediums of journalism; however, the Pakistani culture coexists with the converging landscape.

Keywords: convergence journalism in Pakistan, data visualization, interactive narrative in Pakistani news, mobile journalism, Pakistan's truck art culture

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Authors: Alan Bhekisisa Buthelezi

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The aim of this paper is to explore African management and leadership philosophies at secondary schools in post-apartheid South Africa. The research was conducted in the King Cetshwayo district of KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. Apart from the literature on participative management, the paper reports on a research in which an empirical investigation based on a quantitative research paradigm was used to collect data from secondary school principals. The literature findings revealed that secondary school principals need to rethink their management and leadership philosophies in the twenty-first century. The findings of this research further reveal that ubuntu (humanness) and lekgotla (Sesotho term for “an African participatory approach to decision-making”) should be embedded in the art of school management and leadership in the South African context. The paper concludes with the submission that ongoing capacity-building workshops should be fast-tracked on matters pertaining to management and leadership.

Keywords: distributed leadership, team leadership, decentralization of power, transformational leadership

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Authors: Alan Bhekisisa Buthelezi

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The aim of this paper is to explore African management and leadership philosophies at secondary schools in post-apartheid South Africa. The research was conducted in the King Cetshwayo district of KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. Apart from the literature on participative management, the paper reports on research in which an empirical investigation based on a quantitative research paradigm was used to collect data from secondary school principals. The literature findings revealed that secondary school principals need to rethink their management and leadership philosophies in the twenty-first century. The findings of this research further reveal that ubuntu (humanness) and lekgotla (Sesotho term for ‘an African participatory approach to decision-making’) should be embedded in the art of school management and leadership in the South African context. The paper concludes with the submission that ongoing capacity-building workshops should be fast-tracked on matters pertaining to management and leadership.

Keywords: transformational leadership, distributed leadership, team leadership, decentralisation of power

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Authors: Dimitrios Orfanos, Yannis Maniatis, Alcestis Rodi

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The overconcentration of people in big cities (namely Athens and Thessaloniki) and the tendency to increase their density in the upcoming years cause various problems on a personal, environmental, and social level. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a reversal in urbanism was observed. The counter-urbanization that took place, along with the steady growth of the digital nomad lifestyle, opens up new paths for policies that rejuvenate the non-urban regions in Greece and elsewhere. Promoting actions, either through incentives or through creating organized structures, can transform the Greek rural regions into attractive destinations for those who want to avoid life in big cities permanently or for a short period of time. Subsequently, the gain of the regions that will apply such policies will have a multiplier effect. Greece, being a country with great touristic interest from foreigners, can use the infusion of long-stay visitors as a boost to give way to the Greek urban population that works remotely to move permanently to more rural regions and create the conditions for growth in those regions. The paper studies several cases of such policies, in combination with different options to be explored as to the methods that can be used to take better advantage of these policies. Examples from European and worldwide use cases are presented, noting the parts that can be applied in a country like Greece. An example of an abandoned village is also presented that can be revived through the methods described in the paper. The next possible step in research could be a case study in one of the various locations to determine the level of maturity of the market to pursue such actions.

Keywords: counter-urbanization, digital nomads, rural growth, village revival

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Authors: Hamsini Pulugurtha, V.S. Lakshmi Jagadmaba Paluri

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Distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) is one altogether the top-rated cyber threats presently. It runs down the victim server resources like a system of measurement and buffer size by obstructing the server to supply resources to legitimate shoppers. Throughout this text, we tend to tend to propose a mathematical model of DDoS attack; we discuss its relevancy to the choices like inter-arrival time or rate of arrival of the assault customers accessing the server. We tend to tend to further analyze the attack model in context to the exhausting system of measurement and buffer size of the victim server. The projected technique uses an associate in nursing unattended learning technique, self-organizing map, to make the clusters of identical choices. Lastly, the abstract applies mathematical correlation and so the standard likelihood distribution on the clusters and analyses their behaviors to look at a DDoS attack. These systems not exclusively interconnect very little devices exchanging personal data, but to boot essential infrastructures news standing of nuclear facilities. Although this interconnection brings many edges and blessings, it to boot creates new vulnerabilities and threats which might be conversant in mount attacks. In such sophisticated interconnected systems, the power to look at attacks as early as accomplishable is of paramount importance.

Keywords: application attack, bandwidth, buffer correlation, DDoS distribution flooding intrusion layer, normal prevention probability size

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Authors: Niloufar Yadgari

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GANs are a potent form of deep learning models that have found success in various fields. They are part of the larger group of generative techniques, which aim to produce authentic data using a probabilistic model that learns distributions from actual samples. In clinical settings, GANs have demonstrated improved abilities in capturing spatially intricate, nonlinear, and possibly subtle disease impacts in contrast to conventional generative techniques. This review critically evaluates the current research on how GANs are being used in imaging studies of different neurological conditions like Alzheimer's disease, brain tumors, aging of the brain, and multiple sclerosis. We offer a clear explanation of different GAN techniques for each use case in neuroimaging and delve into the key hurdles, unanswered queries, and potential advancements in utilizing GANs in this field. Our goal is to connect advanced deep learning techniques with neurology studies, showcasing how GANs can assist in clinical decision-making and enhance our comprehension of the structural and functional aspects of brain disorders.

Keywords: GAN, pathology, generative adversarial network, neuro imaging

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Authors: Siwanit Autthawuttikul, Prakob Koraneekid, Sayamon Insa-ard

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The purposes of this research were to development creatively integrated teaching skills using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for professional teacher in schools under the education area of the basic education commission, ministry of education both schools under the office of primary education and those under The office of secondary education in eight western region provinces of Thailand. This is useful in defining a vision for the school strategy and restructuring schools in addition, teachers will have developed skills in teaching creative integrated ICT. The research methodology comprises quantitative and qualitative data collection. The Baseline Survey, focus group for discussions and then the model was developed creatively integrated teaching skills using ICT. The findings showed that 7 elements were important: (1) Academy Transformation (2) Information Technology Infrastructure (3) Personal Development (4) Supervision, Monitoring and Evaluation (5) Motivating and Rewarding (6) Important factor affecting the success of teaching integrated with ICT were knowledge, skills, attitudes and (7) The role of the individual concerned. The comparison creatively integrated teaching skills before and after participating in the overall shows that the average creatively integrated teaching skills using ICT after attending the event is 3.27, and standard deviation was 0.56, higher than before which is 2.60 and the standard deviation was 0.56. There are significant differences significant statistically level of .05. The final average score of the evaluation plan design creatively integrated teaching skills using ICT teachers' average score was 26.94 at the high levels.

Keywords: integrated curriculum, information and communications technology, teachers in the western region, schools

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Authors: Patrick Dzimiri

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This chapter discusses the military-orchestrated leadership change in Zimbabwe that transpired in November 2017. Fundamentally, the chapter provides a critical examination of military interference in the country's politics and its implications for a political transition in the post-Mugabe dispensation. This chapter offers insight into Zimbabwe's political crises propelled by the lack of a succession plan. It emerged that the succession battle within ZANU-PF got complicated by the militarisation of factionalism. The chapter builds from an extensive review of primary and secondary data sources on political developments before and post-Mugabe era. Vilfredo Pareto's (1848-18923) theory on elite circulation is deployed herein to explain the absence of a succession mechanism within ZANU-PF and the militarisation of socio-politics life Zimbabwe. The chapter argues that what transpired in Zimbabwe’s power wrangle within the ZANU-PF political elites was triggered by a lack of a clear succession policy. Building from insights offered by Pareto's theory of elite circulation, it is averred that the removal of Mugabe by the military did not herald any form of political transition but rather a mere power play of one elite replacing another. In addition, it is argued that the lack of political reform by the Mnangagwa government affirms the position that political elites seek power for personal self-actualisation and not the public good. The chapter concludes that Mnangagwa's rise to power is nothing but a new elite displacing the old elite structure and does not herald a positive transition and transformation in the politics of Zimbabwe.

Keywords: military, politics, zimbabwe, governance, political transition

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Authors: Chuang Bing-Kai, Shih Hsiang-Ju

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Previous studies showed that emergent adults used dating applications the most since it would satisfy their needs for intimacy. It's also found that those emergent adults were mostly non-heterosexual. What’s more, in this digital era, more and more bisexuals and homosexuals choose to establish connections with others through Internet to seek a sense of belonging. However, studies rarely focused on gay men in their emergent adulthood to explore their experiences of dating applications. The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of gay men using dating applications in their emerging adulthood and to understand their self-presentations and the process of it among different relationships while interacting with others upon using dating applications. The semi-structured interview was conducted with those gay men who aged from 18 to 29, felt attracted to people with same gender physically and mentally, considered themselves homosexual from their subjective understanding and had been using dating applications for more than half a year. Research invitations were distributed with the assistance of social media platforms and LGBTQ+ friends in the community. This study adopted a qualitative research approach and applied hermeneutic phenomenology as the method to analyze the transcripts transcribed from the recorded audio, and to explore their using experiences and self-presentations while interacting with others while using dating apps. It’s expected to find out that there are four stages in the self-presentation process including establishing personal identity, self-exploration and experimentation, exploring shared interest and values, developing and maintaining connections. Plus, gay men’s motives to use dating apps play an important role in this process and thus influence how they position the apps in their life. Through this study, professional workers can better understand gay men’s considerations and strategies in their self-presentation process as well as the impact of using motives.

Keywords: dating applications, emerging adulthood, gay men, hermeneutic phenomenology

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Authors: H. Shola Adeosun, F. Ajoke Adebiyi

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This study appraises the impact of television on the coverage of Lassa Fever disease. The objectives of the study are to find out whether television is an effective tool for raising awareness about Lassa fever shapes the perception of members of the public. The research work was based on the theoretical foundation of Agenda – setting and reinforcement theory. Survey research method was adopted in the study to elicit data from the residents of Obafemi Owode Local Government, area of Ogun state. Questionnaire and oral interview were adopted as a tool for data gathering. Simple random sampling techniques were used to draw a sample for this study. Out of filled 400 questionnaires distributed to the respondents. 37 of them were incorrectly filled and returned at the stipulated time. This is about (92.5% Tables, percentages, and figures were used to analyse and interpret the data and hypothesis formulation for this study revealed that Lassa fever diseases with higher media coverage were considered more serious and more representative of a disease and estimated to have lower incidents, than diseases less frequently found in the media. Thus, 92% of the respondents agree that they have access to television coverage of Lassa fever disease led to exaggerated perceptions of personal vulnerability. It, therefore, concludes that there is a need for relevant stakeholders to ensure better community health education and improved housing conditions in southwestern Nigeria, with an emphasis on slum areas and that Nigeria need to focus on the immediate response, while preparing for the future because a society or community is all about the people who inhabit. Therefore every effort must be geared towards their society and survival.

Keywords: impact, television, coverage, Lassa fever disease

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Authors: Daehyoung Kim, Pervez Khan, Hoon Kim

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Efficient utilization of spectrum resources is a fundamental issue of wireless communications due to its scarcity. To improve the efficiency of spectrum utilization, the spectrum sharing for unlicensed bands is being regarded as one of key technologies in the next generation wireless networks. A number of schemes such as Listen-Before-Talk(LBT) and carrier sensor adaptive transmission (CSAT) have been suggested from this aspect, but more efficient sharing schemes are required for improving spectrum utilization efficiency. This work considers an opportunistic transmission approach and a dynamic Contention Window (CW) adjustment scheme for LTE-U users sharing the unlicensed spectrum with Wi-Fi, in order to enhance the overall system throughput. The decision criteria for the dynamic adjustment of CW are based on the collision evaluation, derived from the collision probability of the system. The overall performance can be improved due to the adaptive adjustment of the CW. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme outperforms the Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) mechanism of IEEE 802.11 MAC.

Keywords: spectrum sharing, adaptive opportunistic transmission, unlicensed bands, heterogeneous networks

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Authors: Iyad Ismail, Fathilatul Abdul Hamid

Abstract:

This research was mainly investigated to recognize the extent of big data analysis by external auditors. This paper adopts grounded theory as a framework for conducting a series of semi-structured interviews with eighteen external auditors. The research findings comprised the availability extent of big data and big data analysis usage by the external auditors in Palestine, Gaza Strip. Considering the study's outcomes leads to a series of auditing procedures in order to improve the external auditing techniques, which leads to high-quality audit process. Also, this research is crucial for auditing firms by giving an insight into the mechanisms of auditing firms to identify the most important strategies that help in achieving competitive audit quality. These results are aims to instruct the auditing academic and professional institutions in developing techniques for external auditors in order to the big data analysis. This paper provides appropriate information for the decision-making process and a source of future information which affects technological auditing.

Keywords: big data analysis, external auditors, audit reliance, internal audit function

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Authors: Dimitra Alexiou

Abstract:

During the last 10 years, in spite of the economic crisis, the number of tourists arriving in Greece has increased, particularly during the tourist season from April to October. In this paper, the number of annual tourist arrivals is studied to explore their preferences with regard to the month of travel, the selected destinations, as well the amount of money spent. The collected data are processed with statistical methods, yielding numerical and graphical results. From the computation of statistical parameters and the forecasting with exponential smoothing, useful conclusions are arrived at that can be used by the Greek tourism authorities, as well as by tourist organizations, for planning purposes for the coming years. The results of this paper and the computed forecast can also be used for decision making by private tourist enterprises that are investing in Greece. With regard to the statistical methods, the method of Simple Exponential Smoothing of time series of data is employed. The search for a best forecast for 2017 and 2018 provides the value of the smoothing coefficient. For all statistical computations and graphics Microsoft Excel is used.

Keywords: tourism, statistical methods, exponential smoothing, land spatial planning, economy

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Authors: Joko Nurkamto

Abstract:

A lesson plan is a part of the planning phase in a learning and teaching system framing the scenario of pedagogical activities in the classroom. It informs a decision on what to teach and how to landscape classroom interaction. Regardless of these benefits, the writer has witnessed the fact that lesson plans are viewed merely as a teaching document. Therefore, this paper will explore teachers’ beliefs and practices in designing lesson plans. It focuses primarily on how both teachers and students negotiate lesson plans in which the students are deemed to be the agents of instructional innovations. Additionally, the paper will talk about how such lesson plans are enacted. To investigate these issues, document analysis, in-depth interviews, participant classroom observation, and focus group discussion will be deployed as data collection methods in this explorative case study. The benefits of the paper are to show different roles of lesson plans and to discover different ways to design and enact such plans from a socio-interactional perspective.

Keywords: instructional innovation, learning and teaching system, lesson plan, pedagogical activities, teachers' beliefs and practices

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Authors: Ghada Mohammed, Mohamed Abdel Salam, Passent Tantawi

Abstract:

The study aimed to investigate the impact of motives and barriers for Egyptian users to use Airbnb as a platform of peer-to-peer accommodation instead of hotels on overall attitude towards Airbnb. A sequential mixed-methods approach was adopted to this study and it proposed a comprehensive research model adapted from both literature and results of qualitative phase and then tested via an online questionnaire. The findings revealed that, motives, price, home benefits, privacy, and online reviews significantly explained overall attitude towards Airbnb, while the main barriers were respectively: perceived risk and distrust in which they can predict the overall attitude. While from the subjective norms, only social influence can predict behavioral intention to use Airbnb. The study may serve as a practical reference for practitioners as well as researchers when developing programs and strategies to manage Airbnb consumers' needs and decision process. Some of the main conclusions drawn from this study are that variety was one of the major things that users like about Airbnb and the most important motives are the functional ones like price rather than the experiential ones like authenticity.

Keywords: airbnb, barriers, disruptive innovation, motives, sharing economy

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Authors: Corneliu-Ioan Dimitriu, Gheorghe Frățilă

Abstract:

Romania and Bulgaria have high rates of road deaths per million inhabitants. Directive (EU) 2019/1936, known as the RISM Directive, has been transposed into national law by each Member State. The research focuses on the amendments made to Romanian legislation through Government Ordinance no. 3/2022, which aims to improve road safety management on infrastructure. The aim of the research is two-fold: to sensitize the Romanian Government and decision-making entities to develop an integrated and competitive management system and to establish a safe and proactive mobility system that ensures efficient and safe roads. The research includes a critical analysis of European and Romanian legislation, as well as subsequent normative acts related to road infrastructure safety management. Public data from European Union and national authorities, as well as data from the Romanian Road Authority-ARR and Traffic Police database, are utilized. The research methodology involves comparative analysis, criterion analysis, SWOT analysis, and the use of GANTT and WBS diagrams. The Excel tool is employed to process the road accident databases of Romania and Bulgaria. Collaboration with Bulgarian specialists is established to identify common road infrastructure safety issues. The research concludes that the legislative changes have resulted in a relaxation of road safety management in Romania, leading to decreased control over certain management procedures. The amendments to primary and secondary legislation do not meet the current safety requirements for road infrastructure. The research highlights the need for legislative changes and strengthened administrative capacity to enhance road safety. Regional cooperation and the exchange of best practices are emphasized for effective road infrastructure safety management. The research contributes to the theoretical understanding of road infrastructure safety management by analyzing legislative changes and their impact on safety measures. It highlights the importance of an integrated and proactive approach in reducing road accidents and achieving the "zero deaths" objective set by the European Union. Data collection involves accessing public data from relevant authorities and using information from the Romanian Road Authority-ARR and Traffic Police database. Analysis procedures include critical analysis of legislation, comparative analysis of transpositions, criterion analysis, and the use of various diagrams and tools such as SWOT, GANTT, WBS, and Excel. The research addresses the effectiveness of legislative changes in road infrastructure safety management in Romania and the impact on control over management procedures. It also explores the need for strengthened administrative capacity and regional cooperation in addressing road safety issues. The research concludes that the legislative changes made in Romania have not strengthened road safety management and emphasize the need for immediate action, legislative amendments, and enhanced administrative capacity. Collaboration with Bulgarian specialists and the exchange of best practices are recommended for effective road infrastructure safety management. The research contributes to the theoretical understanding of road safety management and provides valuable insights for policymakers and decision-makers in Romania.

Keywords: management, road infrastructure safety, legislation, amendments, collaboration

Procedia PDF Downloads 88